Using Illness and Injury Positively

It’s a given: If you compete seriously as a distance runner, you are going to have illnesses and injuries along the way. Carrie Tollefson, 29, a track and cross country specialist based in St. Paul, MN, knows this perhaps better than any current top competitive runner. Ailments ranging from a bone tumor in her heel during college to major abdominal surgery last year have sidelined Tollefson, but she has never allowed illness or injury to get the best of her. Rather, she has used each potential setback to catapult her forward. Today she is one of the country’s top distance runners.

"Having an illness or injury makes me so hungry," she says. The challenge is to find positive ways to focus her energies during the times that injuries force her to take off from racing. That means lots of cross-training and physical therapy while continuing to safeguard her overall health by eating well, getting enough sleep and avoiding stress.

As a member of Team USA Minnesota, Tollefson maintains her motivation by spending plenty of time with her teammates even when she’s unable to train and race with them, and keeping in close touch with her coach, Dennis Barker. "Having the team and Coach Barker really help because everyone’s been through injuries," she says. "We’re all proof to each other that injuries don’t last forever and that you can come back faster and stronger than before."

Experience has taught Tollefson to avoid "testing" an injury by training hard or racing on it before healing is complete and fitness restored. "If I’m chomping at the bit, I ask myself, ‘How badly do you want it?’" she says. The key here is that "it" refers not to the short-term thrill of a single race, but the long-term goal of sustained world-class level performance. "It isn’t easy to have the discipline to lay off racing," she says, "but it always pays off."

Tollefson has also learned not to let injury and illness devastate her emotionally. "In college I used to view injury as such a negative thing," she recalls. She advises looking to runners who have come back strong from even serious, long-term injuries, or to study the careers of top-ranked runners. "We’ve all been injured," she emphasizes. As a professional runner, she says she doesn’t spend a lot of time hand-wringing while injured. "I just focus on doing the best possible job of healing my body and getting fit again. That’s hard work, so it doesn’t give me much time to sit around feeling sorry for myself."

As an injury begins to heal and she can plan her return to racing, Tollefson sets new—and often lofty—goals. "I’ve found that I really do come back stronger after a layoff, so I’m not afraid to aim high, even my first race back," she says. Even if she falls short, she enjoys the process of giving her all to the effort. "It may sound strange, but I really believe an injury can be an opportunity," Tollefson says. "If I can’t come back stronger, I know I’m not going to last long in the sport."